John F. Simon Jr.
1963–
John F. Simon, Jr. considers writing software to be a form of creative writing and uses programming language as an “activated extension” of written language. He uses his own software to create drawings on paper, plastic, and formica, and his software artwork is displayed on anything from wall-mounted LCD screens to cell phones. His artist's book and software drawing program Mobility Agents was co-published in October 2005 by the Whitney Museum of American Art and Printed Matter, Inc.
John Simon's work was featured in a solo museum exhibition at The Alexandria Museum of Art in his hometown of Alexandria, Louisiana, in October 2005. His work has been included in the Whitney Museum's 2000 Biennial and Bitstreams (2001), and he received the Aldrich Museum Trustee's Award for an Emerging Artist in the fall of 2000. His software panel works have been collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Guggenheim Museum; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.
He holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a Masters degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.
Introduction
John F. Simon Jr. (1963, Louisiana) is a new media artist who works with LCD screens and computer programming. He currently lives and works in Warwick, New York.
Simon holds several degrees: a BA in Art Studio and a BS in Geology from Brown University (1985), a Master's degree in Earth and Planetary Science from Washington University in St. Louis (1987), and a MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts (1989). He is the recipient of the Trustees' Award for an Emerging Artist from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 2000, and the Creative Capital Emerging Fields Award in 1999.
Simon has exhibited internationally, including New York City, Santa Fe, Berlin and Haifa. His work is found in prominent museum collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, University of Iowa Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California. Simon's first European solo exhibition, Color and Time, was held September 17 - October 24, 2008 at Galería Javier López in Madrid, Spain.
In the 1990s, Simon began writing digital software to create visual imagery. His screen works display abstractions that vary infinitely due to random sequencing. The visual elements of each piece are generated in real time by his software.
More recently, Simon has made a series of large-scale compositions that incorporate laser-cut Formica and LCD screens with perpetually changing software. Each LCD screen is housed in cabinet-like structure made from Formica, which is also created by Simon's coding. In addition to his screen work, Simon is also known for his Formica cutouts, drawings on paper and digital projections of his custom software.
Simon's work has been commissioned by curator Xiaoying Juliette Yuan for her series "The Artists Creative Process" that explores world renowned artists and their creative process. In 2014 Simon sculpted the massive hanging wall piece "Moment of Expansion" which is examined from the start of the process to the finished product in Yuan's series.
In 2018 the artist was invited to The New Art Fest, an art and technology festival in Lisbon and exhibited iClock.
"My feeling is that an artist's state of mind when making a work is critical to what the work transmits to the viewer. I have always worked to improve on methods, technique, and materials, but only recently have I found that I can also improve the inner workings; I can develop the mental aspects of my art practice."
- John F. Simon, Jr.Wikidata identifier
Q6232551
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Accessed April 12, 2024.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, computer artist, conceptual artist, painter, scientist
ULAN identifier
500114669
Names
John F. Simon, Jr. John F. Simon
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed April 12, 2024.
